My apologies for not posting in a while. I had some interesting things happen but school work, my senior thesis and midterms got in the way.
Dr. Mehmet Oz (The Dr. Oz Show) came to Princeton to speak to us students about mental health. I really appreciated his total mind and body approach which is very different from Western health care practitioners. My friend and I took some notes from his talk and I would like to share some of them with you.
Dr. Oz’s guidelines to a healthier life:
Listen
Feelings change minds, not facts/knowledge
We all have stress, we must learn how to manage it
Use a crowbar of humor, it makes the tough stuff easier!
When trying to make a change in lifestyle or habit, have the self esteem to stand up for your self and avoid enablers. If you are on a diet, or trying to quit smoking, avoid going to an all you can eat buffet with your friends or to a hanging around smokers.
The ideal blood pressure is 115/75
HDL is body’s plaster—cover up the holes in the body made by high blood pressure
Stop smoking and drinking
Will power will always lose to a diet because of biology. Develop a healthy diet that is easy-to-love
Find the foods you love and that are good for you, avoid and limit the foods that you love and are bad for you.
Incorporate meditative practices—as simple as learning how to take a deep breath and yoga.
Breath with by expanding your diaphragm out on inhale and in on exhale.
Stress leads to fat, 1,000 years ago chronic stress was a famine.
The cure to America’s obesity epidemic is cutting 100 calories a day out of one’s diet.
Weight does not matter waist size does!
The ideal waist size is less than half your height
Your endurance at age 17 is same at age 65
Humans are endurance animals
Go as hard and as fast as you can when you work out. Work out 30 minutes a day.
8 hours of Deep Sleep increases growth hormone.
For better sleep, move the phone 5 feet away from your bed.
Glide in to sleep
Anger vs. empathy are opposites; use empathy to combat anger
When you feel isolated you are more stressed. Use your social web to relieve stress. We have reduced our human interconnectedness reach out to people.
You can not get rid of habits you can only replace them
The best way to make a change is to make it easy for yourself; automate the good things in life.
I got to ask Dr. Oz a question about my tight jaw. I grind my teeth and night and wake up with a sore jaw. I have tried mouth guards but they are unbearable. He said “I bet I’m a worse teeth grinder than you are.” He suggested putting a wine bottle cork lengthwise in between my teeth for five minutes just before bed. It allows for the jaw to stretch. I have been doing it every night and it really works! (posted a pic on twitter the other day).
I am an official Dr. Oz fan now!